


Civil as an Orange

by x_los



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 23:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_los/pseuds/x_los
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coda to "Killing the Groundhog". The morning after. FLUFF.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Civil as an Orange

Title: Civil as an Orange (coda to [Killing the Groundhog](http://x-losfic.livejournal.com/3872.html#cutid1))  
  
Author: [](http://x-los.livejournal.com/profile)[ **x_los**](http://x-los.livejournal.com/)    
  
Rating: PG  
  
Pairing:  Three/Delgado!Master  
  
Summary: The morning after. FLUFF.  
  
A/N: request for [](http://prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com/profile)[ **prettyarbitrary**](http://prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com/). Title from Beatrice in  _Much Ado about Nothing._ Now with more editing! I can't stop editing this, every 5 min some sentence is  _wrong._  
  
  
  


“Civil as an Orange”

 

“Let’s go out and get breakfast,” the Doctor murmured, talking as quietly as if his voice might wake someone up. He draped his hand over the Master’s thigh contentedly. They hadn’t slept yet, but it had suddenly occurred to the Doctor that he hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch yesterday.

 

“Mm,” the Master’s own hand dropped lightly onto the Doctor’s chest, “We’d have to materialize around my TARDIS first to pick her up, but I don’t see why not. Where would you like to go?”

 

“Somewhere with something rich to drink.” The Doctor thought of warm chai coating his tongue in New Delhi or chicory coffee in New Orleans. He smiled in anticipation and adjusted his arm so the Master rested a bit more comfortably against him. “You choose.”

 

“I don’t much feel like completing the short spatial, the long spatial  _and_  the temporal repairs before I’ve had anything to eat,” the Master groused, seeming more boneless than putout. “Actually,” the Master considered, “Before we start on the TARDIS, we should fix  _you_.  And it's unwise to attempt such a delicate level of contact on empty stomachs either.   


 

"I’ll patch up the short spatial circuits and we’ll depart England. The change of scenery will do you good. And  _me._ ” He pinched the skin of the Doctor’s arm between his thumb and forefinger as viciously as someone thoroughly satisfied could manage. It wasn’t terribly impressive. The Doctor made an amused little pout, muttered ‘ouch,’ and the Master railed on. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what an odious non-month you’ve put me through. You’ve a fine mind, but oh  _Doctor_ , how you do use it to annoy me.”

 

“Me!” the Doctor laughed, “And what precisely have  _you_  been doing these past months, old chap? You can’t seek out a bull, dance about in front of it with a muleta, and then get shrewish when it charges.”

 

“Now  _there’s_  an idea. My dear, you’ve hit upon it.”

 

“What, the perfect metaphor for your bloody-mindedness?”

 

“No. And I’m not ‘bloody minded,’ I’m  _focused_. I meant you’ve found us a good place to breakfast.”

 

***

 

A long, broad path traced along the Guadalquivir River in Seville. In the early morning, just after sunrise, the streets were unpeopled. Sevillanos were late risers, as a rule. The light in the sky was the pale cream-blue of the inside of a robin’s egg, and it rippled across the bunched-silk of mackerel clouds. The sun hung full-swollen like a yolk.

 

The city had existed since roughly the ninth century before the Common Era calendar began. It was older than them both together—that was comforting in its way, the Master thought, leaning on the stone ledge of the wall ensconcing the river.

 

The Doctor made disparaging remarks about Franco and occasional scathing jokes about the Guarda as they breakfasted. Both drank thick hot chocolate--this was the first city chocolate had reached in Europe, and you could still taste the kinship to the original Aztec brew in the glutinously rich drink. The Doctor swirled his fried, cinnamon-coated churros, with their soft doughy centers, through the beverage. He popped them into his mouth, chewing, and continuing his commentary when he finished the delicious drenched bit.

 

The Master bit his long tostada, savoring the warm almond chocolate paste on the pillowy bread as he observed the wide, slow coursing river. In the same downward glance the Doctor’s green velvet-sleeved arm on the ledge next to him arrested his eye. He smiled to himself and privately forgave the Doctor for the Time Paradox and a number of other things. Not that the Doctor had to know that.

 

“It’s a beautiful town, even so,” the Doctor said when he’d finished eating. He plucked a sour, inedible orange from a tree next to him, tossing it up in the air with one hand. Seville Orange trees blanketed the city, but their fruit was too bitter for much of anything but marmalade and liqueurs. The Master took another and laid it in the Doctor’s open palm. Grinning, the Doctor began to lightly pass them both from hand to hand.

 

“But Doctor,” the Master said, mock-scandalized, “Can you really approve of the blood splattered mother of the inquisition? The seat of Latin colonialism? Every glorious palace you admire was built with gold taken by force from the conquered native empires, and they didn’t fall gently.” He chucked a third at the Doctor, who began to juggle in earnest.

 

“Come on now,” the Doctor insisted, handling the burden easily, “the city of flamenco! The glittering jewel of Andalusia! The world’s largest cathedral!”

 

“Yes, it’s gorgeous, I think they burn the heretics there!” The Master raised an eyebrow to ask if the Doctor could take another, and the Doctor smirked, indicating he was more than capable. The Master timed the shot and the Doctor caught it.

 

“ _Don Juan, Carmen_ —”

 

“An entire opera pivoting on the axis of crippling poverty in a cigar factory.” The Master grinned and shook his head. “What will you romanticize next?”

 

“Tapas, the April  _feria_  with its  _casetas_ , oh we should see that together some day, it’s thoroughly charming—”

 

“The  _feria_  with its bullfights, all that blood, your precious humans screaming and cooing over boys being gored and animals being speared?” The Master twirled a fifth orange in his hand, waiting for a moment when the Doctor could incorporate it into the movements of the spheres.

 

“No worse than the Death Zone, is it old chap?” The Doctor was cheeky and undaunted. “Are you going to toss that thing at me or palm it ‘till the sun’s high? I thought we might leave before noon. It can get up to 46.6 °C on a day like this. You’ll sweat in that black jacket.”

 

“And you in your velvet,” the Master snorted, shaking the orange at him, “Can you handle a fifth?”

 

“Why Master,” the Doctor positively smoldered, “I can handle anything you throw at me.”

 

“Anything, my dear Doctor?” The Master flat-out leered.

 

“Oh,  _absolutely._ ”

 

 

                The Doctor caught the fifth orange, and they spun about him in perfect grace. “Told you I could,” the Doctor’s tone oozed smugness.

 

                “I never doubted you for an instant.”

 

                "How very gratifying to hear! What should we do after this, then?”

 

“We’ve nowhere we need to be, no one is dictating our actions but ourselves, and there’s not a single infringement on our schedule. As soon as we effect the repairs, the entire universe will spread out before us like a banquet. Surely  _you_  have some idea of what you’d like to do after being stuck for so long in such a dull birdcage?”

 

“As a matter of fact, I do. But I was attempting to be polite.” The Doctor admitted, still keeping all his citrus airborne.

 

The Master folded his arms over his chest. “And here I thought this regeneration didn’t comprehend the vaguest notions of civility!”

 

“Ha.” The Doctor skillfully, one by one, eliminated the oranges from the circle. He used a graceful motion of his wrist to fling each in turn back behind him into the river. “Maybe I’m fully versed, but non-practicing.” He bowed, courtly, and the Master clapped, expression rich with sardonic amusement.

 

“Now I’ve performed for your delight,” the Doctor raised an eyebrow, “Perhaps you’d agree to a visit to the Kesshin jungles when we’re done restoring my poor girl? That’s where I was headed when the High Council intercepted me. I’ve never been.”

 

“Meaning I’ve an opportunity to play guide then,” the Master was pleased, “You’ll love it. The trees there sing in chorus. Some of them are even quite communicative, if you’re an appealing enough psychic conversationalist. I trust you’ve kept in good mental form?”

 

“Er,” the Doctor rubbed his neck, “Not precisely, no.”

 

“Oh  _Doctor,_ ” the Master threw up his hands in exasperation, “Genius is wasted on you. You’re possibly the second greatest psychic of our generation and you’ve entirely let yourself go out of laziness!”

 

                “Meaning I’m the second greatest to you, then?”

 

                “Well,” the Master smirked, “Naturally.”

 

                “You were always such an egotist.”

 

                “Ah, but then I was always right. I’m perfectly delighted to parade you about theKesshin jungles to all of my arboreal acquaintance, but there’s something you can do for  _me,_ first.”

 

                The Doctor was fully literate when it came to reading the glints in his partner’s eyes. This one was quite precisely intelligible. The Doctor rolled his eyes and stepped a bit closer, put his hand over the other man’s.

 

                “ _Again?_  How can you not be tired? We didn’t sleep at all. I’m rather impressed with us.”

 

                “As you should be,” the Master brushed his other hand over the Doctor’s knuckles, “And I did warn you I was going to channel my annoyance with you into something more productive.”

 

                “And threatened me with unspecified dire consequences if I begged off,” the Doctor chuckled, “I remember.”

 

                “And wasn’t someone bragging about being able to handle  _anything?_ ” The Master leaned in, managing to convey ‘towering over’ the Doctor with body language if not with actual height.

 

                “Well, anything  _you_  can throw at me.” The Doctor bent in, brought their faces close, and raised a cavalier eyebrow.

 

                “Why Doctor,” the Master’s eyes went hooded, and he pulled the words out low and supple, “is that a challenge?”

 

                “It did sound like one, didn’t it? Those repairs don’t need to be completed just now, do they?”

 

                “At our leisure, of course. Though I do wonder,” the Master pulled back slightly, “When do you intend to tell your UNIT friends that your exile is at an end?” The affair with the Axos hadn’t fled his memory.

 

He didn’t want the Doctor rushing off to tell the humans too quickly, while everything between them was still tenuous. Such a meeting presented a temptation for the other Time Lord to recover some lost sense of obligation upon seeing his favorite downtrodden pets and leave him. On the other hand it was equally unappealing that the Doctor should avoid going back and  _explicitly_  saying his farewells and resigning his position.   


 

Leave the window open, and the possibility of return would remain, a sore festering at the back of the Doctor’s mind. The Master knew how the Doctor ran when confronted with obstacles. Conflict between them was inevitable.  The stubborn Doctor would have to compromise, which would sit ill with him. And if the Doctor couldn't sustain a psychic defense against the Council's collective long-distance assault on his memory centers by himself, then there would be UNIT, waiting for him to wander back, a comfortable haven just through a door he’d never properly closed.  


 

Something of his unease must have shown on his face, or tainted the tone of the question. The Doctor gripped his hand a little tighter, and the Master winced at being transparent as a windowpane.

 

“You choose when I go,” the Doctor said, quietly, “In a day, in a month, it’s all one to me. We’ll simply return to today in their timeline. I’ll explain the council saw sense and pardoned me, and I’ve long-neglected business to attend to elsewhere in the universe.”

 

“The Council, see sense?” The Master laughed, trying to cover whatever relief his expression must have conveyed. “Now who would be taken in by such an obvious fiction? You must have told them very little indeed about our illustrious home world.”

 

“I was rather busy dealing with threats de jour, yourself included, to conduct lessons in xenosociology.” The Doctor looked up and caught sight of a black-garbed old woman coming down the path in their direction, probably en route to the cathedral. The city was waking around them—from a ways off he could hear the clatter of shutters opening to receive the cool morning air.

 

“So,” the Master so liked establishing structure, and he planned their day with not a little glee, “wring the last smidgen of energy out of you, sleep, fix you and then the ship, and it’s off to the Kesshin jungles. Amenable?”

 

“Perfectly. And you’ve a bit of the chocolate paste on your upper lip.”

 

The Master froze, annoyed. “What, this whole time, and you’ve not said anything, just let me go on looking ridiculous?”

 

“You did  _not_  look ridiculous, and I was rather waiting for the appropriate entry point in the conversation to do this,” the Doctor slid his mouth over the Masters, licking the chocolate neatly off his lip and then dipping to kiss him soundly.

 

“There,” he broke off, “got it. Perhaps we should—”

 

“TARDIS.” The Master demanded, eloquent in his simplicity.

 

“Right behind you.”


End file.
